1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic musical instrument such as a string instrument, which designates the pitch using switches such as depression type switches provided on a fingerboard, and determines sounding timing according to operations of operating elements such as artificial strings to electrically generate musical tones.
2. Description of the Related Art
As disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2002-196752, an electronic musical instrument has been known which is configured like a guitar, for example, and electrically generates musical tones according to operation of a plurality of operating switches (first prior art). This electronic musical instrument has a plurality of depression type operating switches arranged on a fingerboard at the neck and at locations corresponding to areas between frets of a guitar, designates the pitch according to operations of the operating switches, and detects a plucking operation of a plurality of lines (string members) provided at the body to generate musical tones in response to detection signals as trigger signals indicative of the detected plucking operations. This artificially realizes guitar performance.
The electronic musical instrument according to the first prior art, however, can only designate the pitch and the sounding timing and hence can generate monotonous musical tones. To address this problem, an electronic musical instrument has been proposed as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-215158, which is provided with arm type operating elements like tremolo arms of an electronic guitar or the like, for providing electric control to realize a musical tone effect (vibrato)(second prior art).
The electronic musical instrument according to the second prior art, however, can only provide a vibrato effect for all strings as a musical tone effect, but cannot provide a choking effect representative for live guitar performance, and hence there is still room for improvement of the electronic musical instrument in terms of expressiveness in performance.